Southern pacific #18 Restoration – January, 2013

The January 19th and 20th’s work session focused on a couple of areas. The first priority was to finish cleaning up the frame, a dirty job to say the least.

Then focus turned to assembling the valve motion. New bushings had been made in Durango for all the valve motion and had been pressed in and the finished components were ready to install. A couple of trips to Joe Andrews lathe were needed to fine tune a pin and the valve motion all went together very nicely. Doug Mull and Forest worked on adding grease fittings to all valve components. While the valve motion was progressing, others began cleaning up the brake hangers and getting them ready for bushings and any repair work needed. Both brake cylinders were also taken apart, cleaned, and had new piston cups installed. They both worked very well. Finally, Scott Shaffer, Dave Mull and Bob Holland marked and took apart all the spring hangers. The spring rigging was all loaded up and hauled back to Durango, once the material arrives the old bushings will be pressed out and new bushings along with some new pins will be made. The hard chromed piston and valve rods were brought back to Independence from Southern California.

Thanks need to go to Gerry Mulryan of Olancha who kindly brought his machinist’s tool cabinet up and has given it to us to use for the duration of the project.

On a non locomotive note, Bob Babcock hauled the first of our pair of former West Side Lumber trucks to the museum. The trucks were purchased about 18 months ago and have been stored in Placerville, CA. The second truck will hopefully arrive in the near future. While we have no current plans for them, this pair of freight trucks will probably be used to display a boxcar body somewhere down the road.